Tag: Bosnia stamp

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State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs 1918, it would appear the new boss in Bosnia is Serb

A while back, The Philatelist did an Austria Hungary Bosnian region stamp overprinted to reflect the occupation of Serbia, see https://the-philatelist.com/2020/03/27/serbia-1916-with-bosnia-occupying-serbia-in-the-service-of-germans-it-may-be-time-to-stamp-the-black-hand/    .Three years later, the same issue of stamps is now overprinted to reflect Serbia was not only back in charge in Serbia but had Bosnia and relishing it with lots of fun cross outs. Emperor Franz Joseph was dead so lets cross him out and the new State of… failed to mention Bosnia  so better also cross that out as well. At least the stamp is still denominated in Austrian money, so there are additional cross outs to look forward to. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

As Yugoslavia was coming together in the last days of World War I, a rare show of unity was displayed by all the various ethnicities from Yugoslavia who were members of the Austrian Reichsrat parliament. They would work together toward succession. Stamp overprints tell the real story though, the Serbian Cyrillic script tells the Bosnians who was in charge.

Todays stamp is issue A23, a 3 Heller stamp issued by the not internationally recognized state of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs in October 1918. It was a 16 stamp issue of overprints on an Austrian Bosnian military postage stamp from 1912 featuring Emperor Franz Joseph. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents unused. A postal cancellation doubles the value. the unoverstampted original from 1912 is also worth 40 cents unused.

At the time of this stamp there was still officially an Austrian appointed military governor of Bosnia, a Croatian General in Austrian service named Stjepan Sarkotic. He was not in favor of the Serbian takeover of the area though he realized there was going to be a major restructuring. In 1910, Austria allowed for freedom of religion in Bosnia to practice and not face attempts at conversion. To a large extent, this made Bosnian Muslims more comfortable. So it was with them that he met in the last days trying to avoid Serbian domination.

Austrian/Croat Governor of Bosnia Stjepan Sarkotic. He doesn’t look like the type of guy Bosnian Muslims could go to.

I mentioned above the action of the Yugoslav members of the Reichsrat. They were inspired by American President Woodrow Wilson peace proposal that specially set out self determination and autonomy for the many peoples of Austria Hungary. It was this spirit that lead to the forming of the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs that indeed had representation from some from all the ethnicities including the Bosnian Muslims.

Serbian Army enters Zagreb in 1918 during the State of Slovenes s Croats, and Serbs in 1918

It was not to be. Entente power Italy was still at war with them trying to grab territory and the Entente powers decided instead on a Kingdom for the area under the old Serbian King. The new Kingdom arrested now former Governor Sarkotic. When he was released he relocated to Vienna and worked with Croat nationalists there. His goal was reunification of Croatia and Bosnia with Austria because he thought it the only way for the other peoples of Yugoslavia not to be crushed by Serbian nationalism and the influence of the Serbian Orthadox Church. He died in 1939 before the next round of Yugoslav postal cross outs folowing the German invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/09/20/croatia-1941-crossing-out-peter-ii-is-something-we-all-can-agree-on/  .

Well my drink is empty. Come again soon when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Serbia 1916, With Bosnia occupying Serbia in the service of Germans, it may be time to stamp the Black Hand

Starting in 1878, Bosnia was occupied by Serb rival Austria. Naturally that was annoying and made a larger pan Serbia over all Serbs less possible. Why not form a Black Hand within the Serb government to make sure those wimps don’t make some back room deal with the Austrians and all their offered economic subsidies. Maybe we can even exact a little revenge on the Austrians with a little Balkan style justice. What could go wrong? So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

I asked above what could go wrong. Well check out this stamp. Austrian Hapsburg Emperor Franz Joseph presiding over the military occupation government of majority Muslim Bosnia. Now that government was occupying Serbia which is spelled the German way. The Hapsburg Monarchy imagined that with some degree of local autonomy, the people of various ethnicities would be happy to be their loyal subjects. It worked for the most part with Hungary and many a new Balkan nation recruited a German Royal house to rule them. It seems implausible that it could have worked, but this stamp got your letter mailed in Belgrade for two years.

Todays stamp is issue A24, a 60 Heller stamp issued by the Austrian occupation government of Serbia in 1916. The Serbian overstamp of the Austrian military occupation of Bosnia stamp existed in 21 denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 80 cents unused. It is worth more used, I can see why Austria obviously printed extras for the stamp trade, there is a lot going on with this stamp for the stamp collector to ferret out.

The occupation of Bosnia by the Austrians put more of them on more sides of Slavic Serbia. Serbia was a landlocked country and most of it’s imports and exports passed through Austria with Austrians taking a big cut. Serbian alarm at this can be seen in the coup of 1903 that brought to power the less pro Austrian of the two Serbian Royal houses, see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/06/21/serbia-unlike-so-many-places-had-its-own-royal-line-or-more-problimatically-two/  . The new regime then tried to get tough on the Austrians by increasing customs duties on goods from Austria. Austria then closed the borders to all trade for landlocked Serbia. They then sent out feelers to the Serb government offering trade concessions in return for better relations and acceptance of the status quo.

Many Serbs harbored the dream of Serbs controlling more of nearby lands with a relationship with big power Russia. A yugoSlavia if you will with Serbs dominating. Members of the government and Army were very worried Serb Prime Minister Nikola Pasic would wimp out and accept an Austrian deal. They formed a secret society called the Black Hand that would dispense rough justice to wimps and sell outs. Their leader was a Serbian Army Major code named Apis. Since their views coalesced, Black Hand was in alliance with Muslim Albanians who also resented Austria. Black Hand was very worried, with some justification that the upcoming visit of the Hapsburg heir to the area and so there was arraigned a successful assassination of him in Sarajevo that lead to the starting of World War I.

Code name Apis (on right) hatches another scheme with two fellow Black Hands. Or perhaps they are just considering the latest offer from The Hairclub for Men

In the early days of the war with Austria, Apis was promoted to Coronel, although allegedly not for his planning of the assassination. By 1916, however Serbia had been conquered with the remnants of the Army marching into Albania. The Serb government in exile reconvened on the Greek island of Corfu. With complete victory it seemed the way back was to purge themselves of the Black Hand in order that they might be allowed to return to Belgrade by the Austrians. Code Name Apis was tried for his part in the assassination and executed. The government was later allowed back to Belgrade and given power to rule a wider Yugoslavia not by Austria but rather by the victorious Allied side.

In 1953, Tito’s later version of Yugoslavia had their high court withdraw the conviction of Apis. They didn’t quite say that the assassination in Sarajevo was a good thing, but they said that there was inadequate evidence to convict. This was allowed to happen, Austria was now the land locked ethnic rumpstate and was no longer mounting much of a defense of the Hapsburgs.

Well my drink is empty and I will not again today reach for the bottle, I don’t want to be accused of having a black hand. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Bosnia 1906, an enlightened stab at the Eastern question

With the Ottomans being the sick man of 19th century Europe, strategies were concocted to replace them. Sometimes even being enlightened is not enough to pull off the impossible. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The-Philatelist.

When I saw this stamp, I knew that Austria must have governed the Bosnia of the day. The style and the printing of the stamp tells you that.This was a fairly unique offering in that it offered views of Bosnia instead of just the Austro-Hungarian Emperor. Beni Kallay must have not been a stamp collector. The stamp offerings might have been an ideal way to show off local loyal nothings as if they were somethings. This as a condescending way to show that you as the big man are at one with the little people. I guess it was too early in the 20th century for that.

The stamp today is issue A4, a 10 Heller stamp issued by Bosnia Herzegovina in 1906. The stamp is part of a 16 stamp issue in various denominations. This stamp displays the Vrbas River Valley. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

By the second half of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was the sick man of Europe. After losing a war with Russia in 1878, the Great European powers met in Berlin to divide up the spoils. The resulting treaty in theory left Bosnia within the Ottoman Sanjak of Novi Pazar but gave Austro-Hungary the right to militarily occupy it. Austria invaded and although the local Ottoman garrison gave them a serious bloodying, Bosnia was conquered although theoretically still Ottoman. To me it was surprising that what followed was not an ethnic cleansing sending the Moslems back to Turkey. Times were changing though and there was a new class of enlightened with inclusion theories to try out.

The Hapsburg Empire appointed prominent Hungarian Beni Kallay the administrator of their new Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was a writer, political thinker, and historian of the various peoples in the area. He started a program of encouraging Bosnian nationalism as separate from Turkey or Serbia. Writers and artists were subsidized to promote Bosnia as a new self governing nation that was tied to the Hapsburg Emperor  as a benefactor and protector. The Moslem faith was allowed to continue but the clergy were made employees of the state so to lessen the influence of the Caliph in Constantinople.

Beni Kallay

Kallay managed to keep Bosnia mostly peaceful for over 20 years. It is worth stressing what a feat this was in this part of the world at the time, or any time really. However after Kallay’s death in 1903 the policy was reassessed. Over time he was supposed to build a loyalty among the people toward the Hapsburg throne. This did not happen despite the cultural sensitivity and relative success economically. In fact the Muslims were actually still loyal to the Ottoman Pashas that were remember still present, if not actually doing anything. The Austrians formally annexed Bosnia in 1908 causing unrest and a political crises. The crisis was ended when Austria paid the Ottomans to accept Austrian sovereignty. With the sellout of the Bosnians by the Ottomans, the other powers quickly recognized Austrian sovereignty that lasted until the end of World War I in 1918.

Kallay reminds me of later liberal international do gooders like Bono or George Soros. In the end all the virtue signaling and wealth transfers can at best paper over the reality that local people want to represent themselves and don’t want to be spoken for. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.